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Disgraced ex-senator probed after pantsless report

By Chris Camire, ccamire@lowellsun.com

Updated:
11/17/2012 06:29:07 PM EST

Marzilli

WATERTOWN -- James Marzilli, the former state senator who was forced to resign in disgrace in the wake of sexual-harassment charges, was recently investigated by police after a neighbor reported seeing him linger in his doorway wearing no pants.

On Oct. 26, a Watertown woman called police after she allegedly witnessed Marzilli standing behind a glass storm door across the street from her home wearing nothing but a shirt.

The woman, who was raking leaves, told police she saw Marzilli's thigh, but nothing else, because he was wearing a long shirt that covered his groin area. She said Marzilli stood in his doorway for 10 minutes and made eye contact, according to a police report.

After witnessing Marzilli touching his bare thigh, the woman said she called the police out of fear he was going to touch his genitals next, according to the police report. The report states she appeared "shocked and alarmed" while describing the incident and expressed "great concern for her children, herself and her neighbors."

Watertown police said Marzilli, 54, will not face any criminal charges in connection with the incident.

When police knocked on Marzilli's door on Longfellow Road, the former lawmaker answered wearing an untucked, black button-down shirt, blue jeans and sneakers, according to the police report.

Marzilli told authorities he was standing in front of his storm door to get better cellphone reception while talking to his lawyer.

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He told police he was wearing a pair of black shorts in addition to the button-down shirt.

Marzilli then showed police the shorts, which the police report describes as similar to those "typically worn at the (beach)."

The woman who called the police on Marzilli insisted he was not wearing the shorts in question.

"I am 100 percent sure he wore no pants or shorts," she is quoted as saying in the police report. "If he wore underwear then it had to have been a Speedo or bikini-type."

Marzilli, a Democrat, was a state representative from Arlington from 1991-2007 before he was elected to the state Senate. He could not be reached for comment.

Marzilli was arrested June 3, 2008, after he allegedly made bizarre sexual comments to several women in downtown Lowell. When police tried to arrest him in the Roy Parking Garage on Market Street a short time later, Marzilli ran away, and initially lied to police about his identity, according to prosecutors.

He was sentenced in February 2011 to three months in jail and five years of probation after pleading guilty to four counts of annoying and accosting a person of the opposite sex, and single counts of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. He blamed his actions on mental-health issues.

Marzilli was released from the Billerica House of Correction in April 2011 and outfitted with a GPS tracking device nearly a month before his sentence was up.

In September, the state Retirement Board ruled Marzilli's crimes were not connected to his official duties as a lawmaker, and thus under state law he was allowed to keep a $14,000-per-year state pension.

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